33
by Harmonic Friction
Summary: Directly after HBP. Draco Malfoy is held prisoner. Draco Malfoy is the pawn. Draco Malfoy is Lord Voldemort's pet.


**Credit** for the haunting lyrics goes to my dear ronwheezyrox. This is dedicated to her.

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_**33

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_/A shot in the night and he cries, screaming for comforting words/_

"_Father." _With a start, Draco Malfoy rises up from his cot and his eyes adjust to the darkness, a putrid smell claiming his nose.

A murmur of sound is made, a mellow mutter, really, and a sort of spidery swooping of cloaks and fabric. "Oh, _little _Draco," sighs a desperate, yowling voice. "I'm _not _Father."

The blond boy twitched in horror, his stomach a mangled mess of bile, not _vomit_ because he hasn't eaten for nearly two days, and he thought that it might be a nightmare but it isn't and, as the lord gently reminds him as he tries to get a sense of where the voice is coming from:

"_Daddy's not here." _

_/how many days have gone by?/_

Three, Draco knows, because the _first _day, he was treasured, he was the Chosen One and the pawn and everything to the man who requested that Draco call him _Tom _because if he knew him first as human, his _inhuman _appearance wouldn't seem so disgusting. On the _first _day, Draco was allowed to eat.

"I was once as handsome as you," Lord _Tom _smiled, and flicked the blond against the cheek with a jagged, pale finger.

_/how many days?/_

On the second day, though, _Tom _realized that Lucius' son was _not _Lucius, and was most definitely _not _Lucius' elder brother. Draco wanted to be loved, surely, but Draco was made of something different than that of Lucius and Hagawthe Malfoy. Draco was sharper in ways, except he was so _foolish_ and, as Lord _Tom _soon discovered, Draco wouldn't be convinced so very easily.

"You are mine," the Lord told the blond boy delicately, and touched the top of Draco's head.

Draco, tired and hungry, declared: "I'm _nobody's."_

And for this, he was punished.

_/Fighting this fight to end all fights/_

The third day, Draco wagered, was today, but he wasn't for certain what time it was. By now, he was supposed to fall in love. Wasn't that what Aunt Bellatrix had said with _such _a great deal of emotion. Hadn't Mother said _it's time_ ? And Father, stuck in prison, had _fallen in love _as a third year, with Riddle, and shouldn't Draco do the same?

However, when it came to _love, _Draco was noticing lately, that his loyalties actually lied with the Gryffindors.

With Hermione and _Harry_ and even sometimes _Ginny Weasley. _Draco wanted to be in on the jokes, the conversations. He'd never thought of himself with anyone besides Pansy, because that was what They wanted, except _Pansy _was _Pansy _and the Gryffindors were what Draco wanted.

The Gryffindors were who he was being trained to _kill._

_/do you turn your head?/_

On the third day, on _this _day, Lord _Tom _made himself known and requested angrily that the blond refer to him as 'Master', 'Lord' or 'Lord Voldemort.'

Draco felt like spitting in his face, but resisted the urge. If _he _was the plan, he certainly thought _Master _was betting a lot on him. Were they forgetting that Draco was selfish? A spoiled _brat?_

"I want to eat," snarled Draco, pulling on his binds with a moan.

Lord Voldemort slapped him hard across the face. "_Lucius would be disgusted with you," _he said, ashamed, but held out a molding slab of cheese in his open palm.

Draco wolfishly gobbled it right off.

_/If this is the road to peace then why is there blood on our shoes?/_

Somewhere, Draco thought, Harry's going to get us out of this.

Funny how he mused about his enemy with such hope.

Maybe that was part of the attraction.

Draco's upbringing was never constant; Mother and Father came and went, friends were more of acquaintances, and pets often ran off to better lives.

Harry's successes, however, were constant, and Draco trusted him deeply.

On Day Four, Lord Voldemort would discover this fact and punish Draco savagely for it.

_/A shot in the night and he cries/_

"_Stop!" _screams the blond seventeen year old. _"Quit!"_

Lord Voldemort smiled gruesomely and tightened the clamps. _"Say you'll devote yourself to me."_

"_I will, I will!" _Draco shouts.

_/he cries/_

And on Day Five, Draco is barely himself, he's a feeble ghost of someone who might have existed at sometime, but that is not a fact. His skin is the color of death and his eyes are more black than blue.

He has cuts on his knees, arms, and ribcage—Voldemort inflicted.

And chew marks on his wrists and scratch marks on his neck—**Self **inflicted.

_/nothing but lives of our men/_

"I will serve you faithfully," Draco said seriously on Day Six. He figured that if he vowed his allegiance, Harry would save him anyway. Now Tom cannot hurt him.

"I knew you'd come around, sweet," the man tells him.

Draco gives a weak smile. It doesn't seem so wrong anymore.

_/Standing alone without fear/_

Draco misinterpreted Lord Voldemort's ways, however, because on Day Seven, the man told Draco it is time for task _one_, because Draco's first mistake "will not be taken into consideration."

"And what's the task?" asked Draco nonchalantly, over a bowl of steaming stew.

Lord Voldemort seated himself at the end of the table. "You will return to Hogwarts with help from my learnings, and there, you will murder _Dumbledore's _aid, Minerva McGonnagal."

Draco choked. "_McGonnagal?"_

"Oh, don't _worry. _You can kill others, as well, but do save the best for me."

"I—"

"Don't tell me you're _scared."_

"I'm _not—I can prove myself, all right?" _

Voldemort's lip quivers. "Teen _impertinence. _I showed much of that in my own day. Of course, I _knew _my place."

Draco focuses on eating, his head and heart are pounding.

_/Whose blood stains your shoes/_

Draco is made of weaker flesh and bone than the other Malfoys, the _promising, bold, strong _Hagawthe and the _fierce, beautiful, desirable _Lucius. Draco is young for his years and thin, impatient and _petulant. _Draco has simple needs: to eat, to sleep, to be stay unharmed. And his father and uncle were _so ambitious._

On the eighth day, Draco wished he were made of something stronger.

And when day nine rolled around, and Draco was massaging the wounds upon his hips, he wondered if maybe, if perhaps, he'd made a lot of _mistakes _and all of this was something he deserved. Something he should take.

And being a stubborn boy who had never blamed himself for his own actions, Draco Malfoy recalled how _awful _he had acted to all of those _people _who might have helped him.

For this, he slowly began to cry.

_/well this road to peace, it will never end while you turn your head from your fellow man./_

And on day **thirty-three, **Draco knew for certain that Harry Potter most definitely was not searching for _him._

In fact, _no one_ was searching for him, and no one was ever going to make this all right.

Even if they _were, _no one was going to look in the basement of a filthy, old Muggle apartment, between boxes and old generators and rats for a _terrible, whining, scared _Draco.

Lord Voldemort had given up, moved on after the raw turnout of the event, left the blond boy to pick psychotically at his cuffs, to wish for food, and to wish he had been made of something _much, much _different.

_/Now how long until his cries come to an end? Give him an answer.**/

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End file.
